Cookie
62 of Our Best Cookie Recipes, From Chocolate Chip to Snickerdoodle
There's something sweet for everyone.
When tasked with rounding up the best cookie recipes of all time, I couldn’t keep it to just a dozen or two. There are just too many delicious cookie recipes on Food52—from classic chocolate chip to soft and cakey snickerdoodles to Russian tea cakes—so I didn’t choose. Instead, I rounded up 60, count ’em 60, of our top-rated cookie recipes and categorized them by style, making it easier than ever for you to choose what to bake.
1. Chocolate Chip Cookies
Go for gold with everyone’s all-time favorite cookie: perfectly golden brown chocolate chip cookies that are crunchy on the outside with a soft, chewy center.
2. Banana Bread-Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Your favorite breakfast treat in the form of a soft cookie. Mashed overripe bananas deliver major moistness.
3. Wrinkly Chocolate Chip Cookies
You may not be familiar with Sarah Kieffer, but you are definitely familiar with her game-changing technique for baking large and in-charge crispy, crinkly chocolate chip cookies. The way to achieve that mesmerizing ripple effect is to take the cookies out of the oven every couple of minutes and bang the baking sheet aggressively on the countertop, slowly but surely flattening the warm cookies so they turn out crispy on the edges but pleasingly gooey in the center.
4. Ovenly's Secretly Vegan Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies
Here at Food52, we are obsessed with Brooklyn-based bakery Ovenly. That’s why we were so excited to get our hands on their signature chocolate chip cookie recipe, which is totally dairy-free.
5. Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies With Rainbow Fennel Seeds
“I love the malted nuttiness that candied fennel seeds give cookies, not to mention their bitter aniseed flavor,” writes recipe developer Eric Kim. Equal parts unsalted butter and packed dark brown sugar create a perfect chewy texture.
6. Aunt Lolly’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you’re like me, you can do without the raisins when it comes to oatmeal raisin cookies. That’s why I love this recipe. Swap chocolate chips in place of the dried fruit and you’ll ask yourself, “why didn’t I do this sooner?” It’s okay, I said the same thing.
7. Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Cookies
Take a bite of milk and cookies in the form of a chocolate chip cookie recipe!
8. Caramelized Applesauce Chocolate Chip Cookies
“It eats like a classic chocolate chip cookie in flavor, with teeny hints of deep cooked apple cider notes that play nicely with the roasty-toasty browned butter,” writes recipe developer Jessica Romanowski.
9. Spritz Butter Christmas Cookies
Remember that cookie press you bought years ago and has been sitting in the back of your cabinet unused since? Now’s the time to break it out and bring these buttery cookies to formation. Use a seasonally appropriate cutter and feel free to tint the cookie dough with food coloring for Valentine’s Day or Christmas.
10. Gingerbread Cookies
Our all-time favorite gingerbread cookie recipe is so easy to make, you’ll think you’re doing something wrong. All of the flavor comes from just a few ingredients—molasses, ground cloves, and ground ginger. You can make the dough a few days in advance then cut them out into festive boys and girls once the whole family gets together for decorating.
11. Holiday Crinkle Cookies
“This recipe is everything you want in a classic crinkle: Slightly crunchy on the outside, tender and chewy in the middle, and intensely chocolatey,” writes Food52’s director of content Brinda Ayer.
12. Russian Tea Cakes
Also known as Mexican wedding cookies, these nutty, confectioners’ sugar-coated cookies are an all-time classic. Ground nuts (an assortment of almonds, hazelnuts, pecan, walnuts, peanuts, and pistachios) are folded into the buttery, crumbly dough.
13. Dominique Ansel's Linzer Cookies
I love making jam with ripe fresh berries to preserve the very best of summer. Use your favorite berries—strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, or huckleberries all work well here.
14. Italian Rainbow Cookies
These aren’t the cookies to bake when you’re craving something sweet, or at the last minute, forgot you offered to bring dessert to your friend’s dinner party. These layered almond cookies are a labor of love to make, but so so worth it.
15. Danish Butter Cookies
The buttery cookies that come in a colored metallic tin are the ultimate Christmas treat. These cookies, decked out with sanding sugar and studded with dried currants and lemon zest, are better than store-bought, but just as nostalgic.
16. Rose Levy Beranbaum's Molasses Sugar Butter Cookies
Leave it to Rose Levy Beranbaum to make a classic molasses cookie better than we ever imagined possible, thanks to a few simple ingredient swaps (most notably using butter instead of shortening).
17. Vegan Dark Chocolate-Gingerbread Thumbprint Cookies
Gingerbread and chocolate are a massively underrated combination, especially when it comes to holiday baking.
18. Chai Spice Snickerdoodles
These foolproof cookies from Priya Krishna’s kitchen are a little soft, a little chewy, a little crunchy, and perfectly spiced, like a cozy mug of chai masala.
19. Soft, Puffy Snickerdoodles
No one wants a crunchy snickerdoodle. Do you? (Let me know in the comments because I’m curious who you are). But for all the believers who are here for the soft, chewy snickerdoodle cookies, let me just say that I’m here for you and this recipe.
20. Bien Cuit’s Masala Pecan Sandies
Masala, a category of spice blends that are essential in Indian cooking, adds a lovely hint of warmth and spice to these pecan cookies.
21. Brown Butter Apple Pie Cookies
For a twist on a classic Thanksgiving dessert, bring pie to the table...sort of. Apples cooked in browned butter are layered on buttery pastry dough for individual spiced confections.
22. Caramelized White Chocolate & Toasted Milk Cookies
“Toasted milk powder, caramelized white chocolate, and cardamom all give this cookie a warm, cozy aroma that reminds me of my grandmother’s hugs where I’d get wrapped up in her sari,” writes recipe developer Hetal Vasavada.
23. Double-Chocolate French Macarons
French macarons are notoriously finicky. The humidity! The piping technique! Ground almonds need to be pulverized and sifted! But Erin Jeanne McDowell lends a helping hand, guiding you patiently through the baking process so that you can simultaneously remark at how easy they were to make and how incredibly special they taste.
24. Chocolate & Chipotle Crinkle Cookies
Mexican hot chocolate in cookie form—what’s not to love, especially during the chilly winter months?
25. S'mores Cookies
If it’s the time of year when it’s just a tad too chilly to sit outdoors, make these fudgy cookies that have all the elements of the classic campfire treat—mini marshmallows, finely ground graham crackers, dark chocolate chunks, and shredded coconut for good measure.
26. Homemade Thin Mint-Inspired Cookies
When you’re craving Girl Scout cookies in the middle of the fall, make these chocolate peppermint cookies that taste exactly like the real deal.
27. Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
Devilishly dark chocolate cookies with peanut butter and chocolate chips is a recipe that I’ll be making every day, for every occasion for the rest of eternity.
28. Salted Chocolate Buckwheat Cookie
“We decided to use buckwheat for this cookie because of its unique, beautiful, flavor; tender and crumbly texture; and the fact that it makes gluten-free people happy,” says Bien Cuit bakery's pastry chef and owner Zachary Golper.
29. Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
This chocolate cookie has the best kind of crunch, like the kind you get from an Oreo. You can make the dough in advance and then store it in the fridge, which admittedly makes it easier to roll out.
30. Pierre Hermé & Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies
These are one of the most famous cookie recipes of all time. They're fine and sandy like a sablé, but with an adoring soft chew, like a traditional chocolate chip, perfect for chocolate lovers everywhere.
31. Red Velvet Cookies
Your holiday crinkle cookies just got a festive upgrade, with an intense red hue added to the rich dark chocolate dough. The necessary coating of confectioners' sugar is a stark (but sweet!) contrast.
32. Bien Cuit Shortbread
The beauty of most shortbread recipes is that they generally call for just a few basic pantry ingredients like butter, flour, and sugar. What makes this recipe stand out, aside from the fact that it comes from the beloved New York City-based French bakery, is that it’s absolutely foolproof.
33. Salted Rosemary Shortbread
These aren’t your basic buttery shortbread cookies. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those!) But these have fresh rosemary, flaky sea salt, and finely grated grapefruit zest, which make them perfect for serving to your family and friends who insist that they don’t have a sweet tooth.
34. My Girls' Best American Test Kitchen Sugar Cookies
The secret to the best cookie is...cake flour? Well, a combination of cake flour and all-purpose flour! At least according to the brains over at ATK who swear that this is the only chewy sugar cookie recipe you’ll ever need (and our readers agree).
35. Olive Oil Sugar Cookies
Instead of an all-butter sugar cookie, use a combination of unsalted butter and good-quality olive oil. Why? The fruity, slightly grassy olive oil brings an unexpected savory note to these year-round cookie staples.
36. Dorie Greenspan's Do-Almost-Anything Vanilla Cookie Dough
An entire pound of butter and egg whites (no yolks!) are the secret behind Dorie’s famous and endlessly versatile cookie dough recipe.
37. Sugar Cookies With Buttercream Frosting
If, like me, you grew up in the mid-2000s, you’ll recall eating those overly sweet, artificial tasting supermarket cookies at every kid’s birthday party and school function. These are just like these, minus the overly sweet, artificial flavor. Instead, you’ll take a bite and taste real vanilla beans (imagine that!) and the softest-ever buttercream frosting.
38. Vegan Sugar Cookies
Dairy-free bakers, you didn’t think we’d leave you out, did you? All it takes to make classic sugar cookies vegan is two classic plant-based swaps: Earth Balance buttery sticks and Ener-G egg replacer.
39. Olive Oil Sugar Cookies With Pistachios & Lemon Glaze
Pistachios are finely ground and mixed with typical sugar cookie ingredients—all-purpose flour, granulated and confectioners’ sugar, butter, and olive oil. “They’re easy to make, very forgiving, a perfect addition to any holiday table,” writes recipe developer Sarah Kieffer.
40. Sugar Cookie Bars
Honestly, I prefer sugar cookies in the form of bars rather than individual cut-outs. Why? Because I don’t have to chill the dough or cut them out—so much easier! Just press the dough in a baking pan and 15 minutes later, the cookies are fully baked and ready to be frosted.
41. Almond Biscotti
Somewhere along the way, biscotti got a reputation for being dry, bland, and a dentist’s worst nightmare. These cookies are none of those things, but they are on the crunchy side, which means they’re great for dunking in coffee by day and bourbon by night.
42. Orange-Pistachio Biscotti
The sweet, mild nutty flavor of pistachios is enhanced by a couple of tablespoons of orange zest.
43. Magical, Marvelous, Memorable Cookies
Starting at Halloween and going all the way through the New Year, there is an abundance of chips, nuts, and candy galore around the house. If you’ve grown tired of snacking on everything, make these “leftovers” cookies, which bring granola, crushed pretzels, nuts, and chopped chocolate together in one buttery cookie.
44. Dad’s Kitchen Sink Cookies
Equal parts butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar give these cookies their signature chew.
45. The Sampler Cookie
If you are short on time and oven space and find yourself overwhelmed with options for what type of cookie to bring to the cookie swap, don’t choose! Just don’t! Instead, make this recipe that marries Strawberry White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies and Milk and Cookies Chocolate Cookies.
46. m&m Cookies
One of our best cookie recipes is also one of our most highly requested: sugar cookies studded with rainbow M&Ms. A little bit of flaky sea salt sprinkled on top of the cookies adds crunch and offsets the sweetness from the chocolate-coated candy.
47. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
The nostalgic feel and taste of oatmeal raisin cookies will never get old. In fact, they only get better as time goes on. I prefer far more oats than raisins in these classic cookies and so does recipe developer Posie (Harwood) Brian, who found that a three to one ratio was ideal for chewy cookies.
48. Mom-Mom’s Potato Chip Cookies
You may have seen potato chips as one of a few kooky ingredients in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-style cookie, but here, they’re the star of the show (as it should be).
49. 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies
Food Editor Emma Laperruque never ceases to amaze us with her Big Little Recipes and these minimalist gluten-free cookies top the charts.
50. Miso Peanut Butter Cookies With Sesame & Chocolate
No, miso is not just reserved for savory cooking. Here, it introduces a savory, umami element to these otherwise rich and ordinary peanut butter cookies.
51. Peanut Butter Peppermint Chip Cookies
I know what you’re thinking. Peanut butter and peppermint and chocolate too? Just bake a batch, take a bite, and then come back and tell me whether or not you’re still questioning my morals.
52. Blueberry Pecan Oat Thumbprint Cookies
Let’s talk about jam. Blueberry preserves (you can use store-bought or make your own) are added to the cookies after they are almost entirely baked. This technique ensures that the jam adheres to the warm cookie dough and loses some of its sticky texture.
53. Soft Yogurt Cookies with Raspberry Glaze
If you want to get away from using artificial food coloring for this pretty-in-pink glaze, use freeze-dried raspberries, as Molly Yeh has done here.
54. Raspberry Mochi-Stuffed Matcha Cookies
Recipe developer Catherine Yoo’s creativity and risk-taking paid off big time after she successfully developed this recipe. “I tested both savory- and sweet-slanting mochi flavors, and I came up with a few favorites, like raspberry, the recipe for which I’ve included here, as well as miso-almond and salted black tahini. But these flavors are just a jumping-off point—feel free to experiment and try other fruit preserves,” she says.
55. Raspberry Amaretti Cookies
Whether you give them as a gift or bake a few dozen and eat them over the course of a weekend (hey, we’re not judging), these stuffed, extra-almondy cookies filled with raspberry cookie paste are sure to satisfy.
56. Jeweled Butter Cookies
Studded with a bevy of dried fruit and dipped in chocolate, these make-ahead cookies are just waiting to be brought to your holiday cookie swap.
57. Cream Cheese Cookies
This isn’t the recipe that everyone is searching for, but it will soon become part of your weekly cookie rotation. The cream cheese works in two stand-out ways here: first, the fat in it creates an ultra moist, melt-in-your-mouth texture and second, the tang cuts through some of the sweetness.
58. Danielle Kartes' Coconut Custard Macaroons
These rich coconut macaroons, perfect for the coconut enthusiast in your life, are one of our best cookie recipes.
59. Parisian Macarons
Dorie Greenspan is sharing her top tips for perfecting French macarons. Should you let your egg whites sit at room temperature overnight? Why is it so imperative to sift almond flour? Is it really necessary to use tools like a candy thermometer, stand mixer, and silicone baking mats?
60. Matcha Butter Cookies
A few tablespoons of powdered matcha not only adds a natural, intense green hue, but an earthy flavor to these delicate cookies.
61. Vietnamese Iced Coffee Cookies
This isn’t the type of cookie that you wonder, “hmm, do I taste coffee?” It’s not subtle: There’s no denying the flavor from a cup of Joe in these cookies. Three types of coffee-based ingredients—strongly brewed coffee, coarsely ground coffee, and espresso powder—give these iced cookies a serious jolt.
62. Chocolate Caramel Coconut Clusters
Inspired by another Girl Scout favorite—Samoas—shortbread cookies are topped with coconut, caramel sauce, and a drizzle of melted chocolate.
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